Presidents and provosts of Chinese universities will continue to have the opportunity to visit Yale University in the United States to exchange thoughts with teachers and students, according to a memorandum of understanding signed in Beijing on June 6.
Hao Ping, vice-minister of education, said the signing of the memorandum is one of the major outcomes of the seventh annual China-US High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange, which is being held in Beijing on June 6 and June 7.
The memorandum, signed between Yale University and the Chinese Scholarship Council, will enable several presidents and provosts of Chinese universities to immerse themselves in the Western education ideas and approaches of the prestigious university.
Peter Salovey, president of Yale University, said the memorandum actually restarted a former program during which teachers and students met more than 100 presidents and provosts of Chinese universities in previous years.
The network was valuable to Yale, Salovey said.
He added that the exchange between Yale and Chinese universities, which dates back about 150 years, is doing well.
Yale has collaborated with well-known universities of Peking University, Fudan University, Tsinghua University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, in a wide range of fields such as law, environmental studies and life sciences, in which both sides have strengths, he said.
Salovey also said people-to-people exchanges are the heart and soul of the relationship between China and the US, and it’s an honor and a pleasure that Yale could be part of that.
According to the Ministry of Education, China and US have worked closely with each other during the past year to make the programs proposed in 2015 successful, including the Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University, the China-US Young Maker Competition and the China-US University Presidents’ Forum.
During this year’s two-day session, China and the US also announced the launch of exchanges between university think tanks to research problems facing China, the US and the globe.
The two countries will also set up research associations on astronomy to nurture talent in the field.
